Dr. Daniel Gavilanes, a researcher at the Universidad Internacional Iberoamericana (International Iberoamerican University, UNIB), is involved in a study that proposes an innovative approach for medical user identity authentication to address security and privacy challenges in the healthcare field.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has played a promising role in e-health applications over the last decade. This technology expands the existing network to dispersed physical devices, enabling applications such as smart homes and advanced healthcare. It is estimated that by 2025 there will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in use globally. In healthcare, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) connects medical devices through the IoT network, enabling remote monitoring of patients with various health conditions through technologies such as WiFi and RFID. These wearable sensors facilitate real-time monitoring, allowing physicians and healthcare personnel to observe patients from home or while on the go.
Patients with chronic diseases depend on these sensors for continuous monitoring. Data generated by IoMT devices is valuable for medical research and can be stored in the cloud for analysis and distribution. Cloud computing is essential for managing health records, forming an integral part of the healthcare system along with body-worn sensors that collect vital patient data.
However, security is a critical concern. IoMT systems are vulnerable to attacks that can compromise the privacy of patient data. Blockchain technology presents itself as a solution to protect this sensitive data, storing it in a distributed ledger that ensures integrity through consensus among nodes. This approach is especially useful in medicine, where privacy is essential.
Despite the advantages of blockchain, data access issues persist. Healthcare professionals often require different levels of access to patient information, which complicates permissions management. To address this, a role-based authentication model is proposed. This approach allows medical users to access the required information according to their role, reducing the administrative burden of authenticating each user individually. Thus, data is stored in blockchain to ensure its security, and access is managed efficiently, allowing the data owner to grant or revoke permissions as needed.
Simulation performed on blockchain, using Solidity and Python, demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. The results show that role-based authentication and authorization of multiple entities has been successfully implemented. The medical data owner has full control over access rights and can grant or revoke access at any time. This ensures the privacy and security of patient data, while facilitating quick and easy access to data needed for medical treatment.
Compared to existing blockchain systems that lack multi-entity authentication and role-based authorization, the system proposed in this study has minimal latency. This means that medical users can access data in an efficient and timely manner, which improves the quality and effectiveness of medical care.
In conclusion, role-based medical user authentication for blockchain-based IoMT devices is an innovative solution to address security and privacy challenges in healthcare. This approach provides granular control over patient data access rights while ensuring an efficient and secure user experience. With the continued advancement of blockchain technology , this approach is likely to become an integral part of the healthcare infrastructure in the future.
If you want to learn more about this study, click here.
To read more research, check out the UNIB repository.
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